entrapment

This episode contains strong language.

Terry Albury joined the F.B.I. just before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, drawn in by the bureau’s work fighting child exploitation. His role quickly changed after 9/11 however, and he subsequently spent over a decade working in counterterrorism.

Around 2015, he began to deeply question his work. “This is not what I joined the F.B.I. to do,” he recalled thinking.

His doubts about the bureau’s workings led him to leak classified information to journalists. Today, we hear his story.

Guest: Janet Reitman, a contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine. 

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Background reading: 

• Here’s Janet Reitman’s profile of Mr. Albury, the first F.B.I. special agent since Robert Hanssen in 2001 to be convicted under the Espionage Act.

For more information on today’s episode, visit 

nytimes.com/thedaily

. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

In summer 2003, Shahawar Matin Siraj, then 21, met Osama Eldawoody, a nuclear engineer twice his age. To Mr. Siraj’s delight they struck up an unlikely friendship — never before had someone this sophisticated taken him so seriously.

At the older man’s encouragement, Mr. Siraj became entangled in a plot to place a bomb in Herald Square subway station. He would later want out of the plan, but it was too late: Mr. Eldawoody, it turned out, was one of thousands of informants recruited by the police and the F.B.I. after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Today on The Sunday Read, did the U.S. government’s network of informants create plots where none existed?

This story was written by Rozina Ali and recorded by Audm. To hear more audio stories from publishers like The New York Times, download Audm for iPhone or Android.